NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale football team opens its 2012 home schedule on Youth Day by hosting Colgate in a noon kickoff at Yale Bowl and the Class of 1954 Field this Saturday. This is the first of four straight home games for the Bulldogs. The game airs live on WELI (AM-960, weli.com) and on Yale All Access.

SERIES

Yale owns a 25-10-3 lead in a series that kicked off in 1909 with a 36-0 Bulldog win at New Haven. Only two of the 38 meetings have been out of Connecticut; the Blue is 24-9-3 at home against the Raiders. The last six games have been split.

LAST MEETING

A 37-yard field goal by Andrew Sullivan with seven seconds left gave Yale a 31-28 win over No. 11 ranked Colgate at the Yale Bowl on Oct. 2, 2004. Sullivan's boot capped a comeback from a 28-14 deficit that saw Yale score 17 points in a stretch of 4:40 in the fourth quarter.

ELIS FALL IN IVY OPENER

Jeff Mathews threw for 340 yards and four scores as Cornell won 45-6 before 15,333 at Ithaca last week. Each of three Yale first-half turnovers turned into points for the Big Red, who quickly put the game out of reach. Eli freshman QB Eric Williams (Portland, Ore.) completed 27 of 37 passes for 211 yards, but was picked off twice. FS John Powers (Hamden, Conn.) and LB Ryan Falbo (Moon Township, Pa.) led the Blue with 10 total tackles each.

FIRSTS

Freshman WR Austin Reuland (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) and senior WR Derek Russell (Newton, Mass.) each caught their first collegiate passes. Reuland, whose brother, Konrad, is a TE on the New York Jets, topped all Yale receivers with six catches for 79 yards. Sophomore WR Grant Wallace (St. Louis, Mo.), who had his first career catches at Georgetown, hauled in his first TD pass at Cornell. Sophomore P Parker Toms (San Carlos, Calif.) had his first two collegiate punts.

GATE EDGED

A Raiders fourth-and-one with under a minute to play at midfield came up short as nationally ranked Stony Brook escaped at home with a 32-31 win over Colgate last Saturday night. RB Jordan McCord rushed for 116 yards and one TD, while QB Gavin McCarney completed 14 of his 24 throws for 163 yards and a score for the visitors.

RAIDERS

Under 17th-year head coach Dick Biddle, the Raiders have become one of the top FCS programs in the East. He has been named Patriot League Coach of the Year four times while guiding the Raiders to six Patriot League titles and six appearances in the FCS (formally I-AA) playoffs.

NOTABLE YALE-COLGATE GAMES

The Bulldogs had a team record 103 offensive plays in a 49-14 win at New Haven in 1968…Bob Milligan '72 caught three TD passes in a 40-21 Blue win at the Bowl… Yale established a school-record by forcing nine Colgate fumbles in 1974 at the Bowl, a 30-7 Eli win… Raider back Kenny Gamble had 220 yards on 36 carries in 1986, but the Blue won 28-23 at the Bowl… Yale TE Nate Lawrie had 16 catches and the teams combined for 92 points at Hamilton in 2003 during a 52-40 Colgate win.

DEFENSE

The Yale defense has been responsible for two sacks, three fumbles, and one interception over two games. Twenty-five different Bulldogs have made tackles.

MCHALE

Senior LB Will McHale (Old Greenwich, Conn.) leads the Blue with 10 solo and 22 overall tackles. McHale, who has started 22 straight games since his sophomore year, has 155 career tackles and three interceptions. He was second-team All-Ivy last fall. The 6-foot-1, 236-pound defensive leader with Sunday football potential comes from a college football family. Both his father and grandfather played at Notre Dame.

VARGA

Yale freshman running back Tyler Varga (Kitchener, Ont.) is averaging 97 yards over two games with a pair of scores. His 40-yard rush last week is the longest by an Eli this season. He earned the first Ivy League Rookie of the Week award after galloping for a game-high 103 yards and two scores in a win at Georgetown on Sept. 15. He is the first freshman to run for triple digits in his Yale debut since Mike McLeod in 2005. Varga, who played at the University of Western Ontario in 2011, scored the first points of the Yale season on a two-yard run in the first quarter at D.C. before adding the winning points in the third with a nine-yard burst. The 5-foot-11, 220-pound back has mostly alternated series with senior Mordecai Cargill. Varga's 24.7 kick return average is second among Ivy players.

LONGEST PLAY

The longest Yale play from scrimmage, a halfback option pass from RB Don Gesicki to WR Gary Fencik at Princeton in 1975, stood until the 2012 opener. Junior WR Cameron Sandquist (Redmond, Wash.) connected with QB Eric Williams (Portland, Ore.) on a 98-yarder in the second quarter at Georgetown.

CAM

Cameron Sandquist leads the team with 11 catches and 196 yards this season. He entered the season with 21 career grabs. Sandquist had a career-high nine against the Hoyas in the opener. Sandquist, who has five career TD grabs, scored on his first two collegiate receptions as a freshman in 2010 against Columbia. He is equally famous for his role as shortstop on the 2004 Little League World Series Northwest (Redmond LL) Team.

BULLDOG BITES

Twelve different Bulldogs have caught passes… Senior CB Collin Bibb (San Antonio, Texas) has Yale's only interception this year, and it was a game-winner at Georgetown… The Elis used two punters last week at Cornell. Parker Toms (San Carlos, Calif.) had his first collegiate kicks and shared the attempts with Kyle Cazzetta (Slate Hill, N.Y.), who started every game last year and the 2012 opener.

TWO STRAIGHT ON ROAD
This is the first campaign in eight years that has Yale on the road the first two weeks, and it has resulted in a split both times. The Elis opened 2004 with games at Dayton (24-17, W) and Cornell (19-7, L) and didn't have a home game until Oct. 2.

NEW MENTOR
Tony Reno, the Joel E. Smilow'54 Head Coach of Yale football, is in his first head coaching position after cutting his teeth in the Ivy League the last nine seasons. He was a Bulldog assistant under Jack Siedlecki (2002-08) and coached for the Crimson the last three falls. This isn't the first time an Italian-American, former Bulldog assistant in his mid 30s took over the Yale program. Carm Cozza did it in 1965 and amassed an Ivy record 179 wins 32 years later.

ROSTER
Yale players reported to campus on Aug. 15 and practice began two days later. The team had multiple Blue-White scrimmages and also competed with Brown at the Bowl on Sept. 1. The roster began at 111 players but has been slimmed to 96 during the Elis' most physically challenging pre-season camps in recent years.

TEAM LEADER

Each week the Yale football team elects someone to be its "team leader" for the game. Senior RB Mordecai Cargill earned that honor at Georgetown, while classmate Collin Bibb, a CB, went out for the coin toss at Cornell.

QB

Freshman Eric Williams (Portland, Ore.) has completed better than 68 percent of his passes for 461 yards in two games. He has a 121.38 efficiency rating heading into his third collegiate start. Williams, the brother of Yale football players Scott '13 and Sean '11, and the son of former NFL player, Larry (Browns, Patriots, Saints, Chargers), became Yale's first freshman starter behind center since Mike McClellan '01 in the 1997 season opener at home against Brown (McClellan was the first Eli rookie QB to start a varsity game since World War II). Williams was the starting QB at Jesuit High School in Portland for two years before his family moved, and he spent his senior campaign at St. Ignatius near Cleveland. One of the assistant coaches on the St. Ignatius team was former Yale captain Rory Hennessey '05.

FROSH
There are an unprecedented eight (number could move up or down) freshmen on the Yale two-deep depth chart, including six on offense. Fifteen newcomers were on the travel squad last week, and at one time in the game there were four freshmen on offense.

WORTH THE WAIT

Senior WR Derek Russell (Newton, Mass.) has been a patient a loyal Bulldog as he waited for a chance to make an impact for the varsity. Russell, who passed for 2,100 yards and 21 TDs his senior year at Newton South High, has bounced around different positions at Yale before settling into his first collegiate varsity role this fall as the top holder and a backup receiver. Last week at Ithaca he caught three passes for 27 yards.

IVY

Ancient Eight teams won five of eight games in week one and were 2-3 vs. Patriot teams. Last week the Ivies were 1-3 out of league with Dartmouth getting the win over Holy Cross.

PATRIOT

All of Yale's non-league games are against Patriot League squads this fall. The Blue beat Georgetown (3-1, 0-0) and have games remaining against Colgate and Lafayette (3-0, 1-0). The Leopards beat Bucknell last week.

HERE'S THE KICKER
Senior Philippe Panico (Boston, Mass.) can throw the football 60 yards, but he is not one of the Yale QBs. The Bulldogs' top place kicker, who interned at ESPN last summer, is strong-armed and can often be seen launching spirals on the practice field. Panico, who has handled almost all the PK and kickoff duties the last two years, accounted for six points in the season

AWARDS

Three Bulldogs were honored after week one of the season, one from the Ivy and the other from the website collegefootballperformance.com.

Ivy League: RB Tyler Varga (Sept. 15), Rookie of the Week

CFPA: LB Will McHale, WR Cameron Sandquist (Sept. 15)

NEW DIGS
Yale Football has a new player lounge on the third floor of Ray Tompkins House replete with couches, tables, desks, games, TVs and life-sized images on the walls.

RETRO
The Yale helmets have a slight "retro" look this fall with a change in the "Y" on the sides. Instead of having the "Y" outlined with a white line and then an outer blue edge, a thinner blue "Y" now stands alone, showcasing the look from the late 1960s through the 1980s.

100TH

The 100th anniversary of Yale Bowl will be celebrated during the 2014 season. Planning for the celebration has just begun. The bulk of the activity will take place on Sept. 27 when the Bulldogs host Army for the first time since 1988 (last meeting was 1996).

NOT A SCHEDULE TYPO
For the second straight fall, the Elis host Dartmouth and play at Columbia. According to the league, the Ivy schedule format changed in 2008. In order to make the necessary changes and follow the scheduling parameters, these two game sites had to remain for a second straight year.

SET IN STONE
There are 3,543 names of Yale football players listed on 345 stones in Jensen Plaza outside Yale Bowl. The names include the first Bulldog squad in 1872 through the class of 2012.

VANDERBLUE
Two former Yale receivers are coaches on the 2012 Vanderbilt University football squad. Bob Shoop '88, a 24-year veteran of college coaching, is the defensive coordinator. Chandler Henley '06, the captain of the 2006 Ivy Champions, is a graduate assistant coach. A third Yale grad, Paul Rice '10 (2009 captain), is in the same region as a graduate assistant football coach at Georgia Tech.

BULLPUPS
The Yale JV has four games slated for this fall: Sept. 30 vs. Milford Academy; Oct. 28 vs. Bridgton Academy; Nov. 4 at Brown and Nov. 16 at Harvard. All games are 1 p.m., home contests are played at Clint Frank Field.

ANCIENT EIGHT CROWNS
Dartmouth owns the most Ivy League titles since league play officially began in 1956. Yale and Harvard trail Penn by one for second.

Yale is 4-3 in OT games since its first, a 34-31 loss at Penn in 2003.The last OT game was a 26-20, triple-extra-session win at Penn in 2007.

TUESDAYS AT MORY'S
Tony Reno, the Joel E. Smilow '54 Head Coach of Yale Football, and some of his players are at the world famous Mory's (306 York Street) every Tuesday (Sept. 11 through Nov. 12) at noon for the Dick Galiette Yale Football Media Luncheon. This event is limited to media only. Please contact Yale Sports Publicity Director Steve Conn (steven.conn@yale.edu) if you would like to attend. Here's who has joined Coach Reno this season: Chris Dooley, Mordecai Cargill (Georgetown); Eric Williams, John Powers (Cornell).

STREAMING BULLDOGS
All five home games this season are video streamed on yalebulldogs.com through Yale's All Access with Ron Vaccaro (follow @yalevoice on Twitter for Yale football updates)
and Carm Cozza providing the call for both All Access and WELI Radio. All home games are live broadcasts except for Penn on Oct. 20 (NBC Sports Network).

3RD QUARTER

A recent tradition continues with Yale football radio broadcasts in 2012. Every third quarter, home and away, Vaccaro and Cozza are joined by a former Yale player on WELI. Here's who has been on this fall: Dave Sheronas '93 and Dan Urban '93 (Georgetown) and Gary Wilhelm '74 (Cornell). Jake Stoller '12 is slated for the Colgate game.

PRACTICE
The Bulldogs, off on Mondays, are on the field from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday behind the baseball stadium. Fridays are walk-through days either at Yale Bowl or on the road and times vary. Players and coaches are available for interviews with working media following the practice if there is no student-athlete scheduling conflicts. All schedules are subject to change.

YALE ON YES
Yale on YES includes three broadcasts this fall on the YES Network. The YES games are Columbia, Brown and Princeton. This is the fifth straight fall the Bulldogs appear on the network home for New York Yankees baseball. YES broadcaster Chris Shearn handles the play-by-play, with color commentary coming from former Yale defensive back Jack Ford '72, a well-known author and TV personality, and ex-National Football League and Princeton lineman Ross Tucker.

NBCSN
Yale football airs live on NBC Sports Network three times this fall. The Cornell, Penn and Harvard games will be shown by the TV group previously branded as VERSUS. The studio team of Liam McHugh, Doug Flutie and Hines Ward provide pre- and post-game coverage on NBC and/or NBC Sports Network every Saturday of the college football season. The NBC Sports Network has televised 17 Ivy League football matchups featuring all eight schools over the past four (2008-11) seasons.

YORKSIDE IN BOWL
The Yale Bowl press box has a taste of New Haven with Yorkside Pizza & Restaurant serving slices, pasta and salad to the media on home Saturdays.

MOST COLLEGE FB WINS
Yale was the first football team of any type to reach 800 wins when it beat Dayton 42-6 on Sept. 16, 2000. It wasn't hard for Michigan (896 wins) to catch up playing three or four games more than Yale each season. The Bulldogs are second with 870 victories.

BULLDOGS AT NFL CAMPS
Shane Bannon '11 (Chiefs) and Jake Stoller '12 (Steelers) were in NFL Camps right up to the start of the 2012 regular season. Bannon, an H-Back on the Kansas City practice squad in 2011, suffered an injury midway through this year's camp before being released. Stoller, a defensive lineman, made it all the way to the final day of teams reporting their regular-season rosters.

NFL COACHES
Three former Bulldogs are coaching in the NFL this season. Dick Jauron '73, who has spent 34 years in the NFL as a player (25 interceptions, Detroit & Cincinnati) and coach, is in his second year as the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns. He has also coached in Jacksonville, Green Bay, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo and Philadelphia. Jauron, the 2001 AP Coach of the Year with the Bears, was an NFL head coach three times, most recently with the Bills (2006-09). Pat Graham '01, a former Yale tight end and defensive lineman, is a defensive assistant coach for the New England Patriots. He is in his fourth season at Foxboro. Graham, a Waterbury, Conn., native, was a member of Yale's 1999 Ivy title team. Michael McDaniel '05 is in his sixth NFL campaign and second with the Washington Redskins. He also coached the Houston Texans and Denver Broncos.

CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME
Yale, which last played in the Golden State in 2005 at the University of San Diego, has another trip to California planned. On Oct. 5, 2013, the Bulldogs will play against Cal Poly Tech at San Luis Obispo. The only two games the Blue has played on the West Coast were against USD.

NEXT WEEK
The Elis entertain Dartmouth in an important Ivy game at noon on Oct. 6.

LEADERS COME TO YALE
The annual survey of Bulldogs produced the anticipated results; Yale is a team full of leaders who produced as much off the field as they did on it. Here is the 2012 breakdown.
50 players were captains of their high school football team
35 players were captains of another sport in high school
41 players were a national honors society member
4 players were class president at their high school
4 players were student body president at their high school
5 players were class valedictorian at their high school
4 players were class salutatorian at their high school

POPULAR DOGS
The following Yalies have distinguished themselves according to a vote by their teammates.

INSIDE IVY FOOTBALL
"Inside Ivy League Football" runs all 10 Wednesdays of the season at 7 p.m. on BlogTalkRadio.com (blogtalkradio.com/inside ivyleaguefootball). It will be available on-demand via BlogTalkRadio and IvyLeagueSports.com. Fans and alumni can interact with "Inside" via its social media platforms -- Facebook (Inside Ivy League Football) and Twitter (@insideivyfb) -- as well as provide ideas and content for the show's 'Twitter Talk/Facebook Fodder' segment. Selected episodes will feature Ivy football trivia with chances to win Ivy League-branded merchandise or a gift certificate to the League's official online store at shop.ivyleaguesports.com. The show will be hosted by two veteran Ivy broadcasters, Dan Loney and Brian Seltzer.

TWITTER, FACEBOOK
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